1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a mammography system for radiographing a mamma image and an information managing method for managing a radiographed mamma image, radiographing order information and radiography performance information.
2. Description of Related Art
An image obtained with radiography has been widely used as a medical image for diagnosis, and recently, digitization of medical images have been achieved. For example, a CR (Computed Radiography) device is used to obtain an image signal by making a phosphor plate in which a photostimulable phosphor layer is formed to absorb radiations having transmitted through a subject, scanning the phosphor plate with laser beam to emit radiation energy accumulated in the phosphor layer, and photoelectrically converts the emitted light.
Conventionally, when a radiation image of a patient is radiographed, radiography for each patient is managed by a radiographic technician recording radiography performance information such as radiation exposure-amount, a radiographic part/direction and the like at the time of radiography on a management paper, and later a manager collecting the management paper and inputting the radiography performance information to a Hospital Information System (hereafter, it is referred to as HIS) for managing information in a hospital or a Radiology Information System (hereafter, it is referred to as RIS) for managing information in a department of radiology to make a database. However, in this management method, since it is necessary to record radiography performance information at each time of radiography and further to input the recorded radiography performance information to HIS, the operation procedure is complicated.
In recent years, utilized is a radiography system capable of simplifying a radiography management operation by connecting a radiographing apparatus and a controller through a communication network, the controller for controlling a radiography operation of the radiographing apparatus, obtaining radiography performance information at the controller from the radiographing apparatus online, and uploading the obtained radiography performance information to HIS (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Publication (Unexamined) No. Tokukai 2003-88515).
With reference to FIG. 16, the above-mentioned radiography system will be described.
The radiography system using the photostimulable phosphor is largely classified into an exclusive type which incorporates a phosphor plate therein for performing both radiography and reading an image, and a cassette type which is carriageable and holds a phosphor plate. A radiography method with the cassette type will be described with reference to FIG. 16.
As shown in FIG. 16, a mammography system of the cassette type comprises a radiographing apparatus for radiographing a medical image of a patient with the use of a cassette, a reading apparatus for reading the medical image from the cassette, and a controller for obtaining the read medical image by controlling the reading apparatus. The controller is structured to be capable of communicating with HIS or RIS.
In the radiography system having the above-mentioned structure, before radiography, according to a request from a doctor, radiographing order information is issued, the radiographing order information including patient information such as a patient name of a radiography subject, sex and the like, radiography instruction information such as a radiographic part, a radiographic method and the like, examination information and the like. The issued radiographing order information is delivered to the controller. At the controller, the radiographing order information is displayed in a list form at the time of radiography.
Hereinafter, a workflow of radiography in the radiography system will be described.    1. A radiographic technician selects radiographing order information which radiography is to be performed based on, among radiographing order information displayed in a list form at the controller. Here, the selection may be made either before the radiography or after the radiography.    2. In order to clarify correspondence of a cassette to be used for the radiography and radiographing order information, the radiographic technician performs an operation called cassette registration. In the cassette, identification information (hereafter, it is referred to as cassette ID) for identifying the cassette from the other cassettes is placed. In the cassette registration operation, the radiographic technician inputs a cassette ID of the cassette to be related to the selected radiographing order information, to the controller. At the controller, as well as the selected radiographing order information is displayed, the selected radiographing order information and the inputted cassette ID are related to each other. Here, the cassette registration may be performed after the radiography. The former way of performing cassette registration before radiography is called pre-registration, and the latter way of performing cassette registration after radiography is called post-registration.    3. The radiographic technician looks at the displayed radiographing order information to confirm a patient of a radiography subject, a radiographic part and the like, and perform radiography at a radiographing apparatus. With radiations irradiated in the radiographing apparatus, a radiation image is recorded in the cassette and radiographing performance information is transmitted to the controller.    4. The radiographic technician sets the cassette to the reading apparatus and has the reading started. In the reading apparatus, a medical image and a cassette ID are read from the cassette, and the read medical image and the read cassette ID are related to each other and transmitted to the controller.    5. In the controller, the selected radiographing order information is related to the radiographing performance information transmitted from the radiographing apparatus. In addition, the medical image transmitted from the reading apparatus is related to the radiographing order information. After all, the medical image is related to the radiographing order information and the radiography performance information, and these related information is transmitted to HIS or RIS as accompanying information of the medical image.
However, in the above-described method, since a radiographic technician always has to select radiographing order information to which radiographing performance information is to be related, the selecting operation is complicated. In particular, if a mamma image is to be radiographed, generally, radiography is performed to one patient at different radiographic parts and in different radiographic directions, such as a left mamma in up-down direction, in in-out direction, a right mamma in up-down direction, in in-out direction. In this case, it is necessary that, at each time of radiography, after the radiographic technician travels to the reading apparatus and sets the cassette to the reading apparatus, he/she again has to return to the controller for selecting radiographing order information and travel to the radiographing apparatus. Therefore, efficiency of radiography operation is poor.